They appeared next to the Temple of Venus, in Piazza Bocca della Verità and at the foot of the place where the Septizodium, the monumental nymphaeum of the imperial era, once stood. Five columns with irregular shapes, up to 14 meters high, which stand out next to some of the most beautiful and evocative works of Rome. What are? It is “Infinite Columns”, an installation by the Korean artist Park Eun Sun curated by Leonardo Contini, which from 11 June to 30 September 2024, on the occasion of the year of cultural exchange Italy and Korea 2024-2025, will bring contemporary art in the heart of Rome, between the Colosseum archaeological park, Piazza della Bocca della Verità and the Septizodium, to pay homage to the 140th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Italy and Korea.
Where the columns are located
“Infinite Columns” develops at the vertices of an ideal triangle that connects the Temple of Venus, Piazza della Bocca della Verità and the area in front of the ancient Septizodium. The columns are in polychrome marble and granite. Starting from the archaeological park of the Colosseum, we come across two installations in red and black granite which, according to the curator’s intention, propose a “poetics of absences which aims to attract the gaze where the void now remains, full of historical and artistic, of what time and history have demolished”. Another column, 14 meters high, stands out in Piazza della Bocca della Verità, in the Forum Boarium, “putting itself in dialogue – we read in a note – with two ‘big sisters’ that still remain in the city: the Trajan and Aurelia columns” .
The last two columns, over six meters high, stand at the foot of the place where the Septizodium once stood, a monumental nymphaeum from the imperial age. The two works overlook the Circus Maximus “with the intention of creating a positive association with respect to a context which for users represents a place of sharing and complicity, which will hopefully be enriched by the presence of the works”. The exhibition of Park Eun Sun’s monumental works in Rome ideally unites Italy and South Korea, proposing an archeology “that investigates not only time but also space and the evolution of art over the centuries”. In particular, the five monumental works that make up the exhibition focus on the theme of the column, of which Park continues the tradition that has turned a fundamentally structural element into an art object.
Because they have fractures
A detail that immediately catches the eye when looking at the columns is that they have deep fractures, almost as if they had been damaged. These “wounds” evoke, in the artist’s intention, on the one hand, suffering, but on the other they are a symbol of rebirth, as well as a window that allows you to ‘see beyond the surface’ to admire the interior of the sculpture, where the material is left raw. Park’s works are also distinguished by the use of a technique characterized by the alternation of two different colours, which gives the effect of an elegant two-colour stratification.
